


When The Wind Is In The Whinflower

by A Kiss of Fire (TigerDragon), Roses



Series: Brothers in Arms [2]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Activism, Angst, Atheism, Atheist Character, Children, Dark, Drama, Fantasy, Gen, Letters, Love, Love/Hate, POV Third Person, Politics, Terrorism, Tragedy, War, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 01:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerDragon/pseuds/A%20Kiss%20of%20Fire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roses/pseuds/Roses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the days before Gwillym Malik begins his plot to kill an arl, long before the Circle Tower and the Blight, he begins receiving letters from Alexandra Cousland--the only daughter of the Teyrn of Highever. </p><p>They form a friendship that will last until she is murdered by the machinations of Teyrn Loghain and Rendon Howe at the time of the Fifth Blight. </p><p>This is, for the most part, their story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 30 Cloudreach 9:14 Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the material here takes the form of letters and meetings between Will and Alexandra--which is to say that it's mostly political and ideological genfic that has been/is being/will be written by myself and [TigerDragon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerDragon). 
> 
> Where that isn't the case, there will be notes :)

_A letter, delivered on the last day of the fourth month of 9:14 Dragon by way of the blacksmith's guild of Highever to Gwillym Malik of the city of Hinter, accompanied by a small purse of some dozen gold pieces. The paper and ink are fine and expensive, and the leather scroll case is thick enough to keep the contents pristine._

 

Gwillym,

I have read your pamphlets, though the king says they ought to be burned, because the daughter of a ( _here the word Teyrn has been carefully struck out, until the word is only barely visible_ ) prominent man must know the shape that the world is and not the shape that one might like it to be. I understand you are felt to speak for many of the people of Highmoor, and that you have been imprisoned more than once for that which you have written but still continue to speak and to write. This speaks well of your conviction, if of nothing else.

The more I read of your pamphlets, the more I come to see that the Ascellan people have complaints which are many and just - while it it right that good and dependable men should be given hold of the guilds and workshops of an arling, the measure of goodness and steadfastness does not come from the land of one's birth. While it is right and good that land should be given to those who well serve their lord, it is no less than theft that such land should be taken from those who have committed no crime and done no ill. While it is right and good that the city guard should be used for the protection of the people, it is a travesty of their purpose if the 'protection' of the people includes beatings and worse for no reason save that those struck are of a people whose place beneath the Crown is thick with contention. 

I read these things, looking on the people of ( _here a word has been begun and struck out again_ ) my home and  imagine such things done to them, and it sickens me. 

It is the right and duty of a man to serve his lord, but equally it is the right and duty of a lord to keep faith with his people. Blood calls us to something higher than the mere pursuit of self-interest, and a man who abuses his title and position for no better use than that is worthy of neither position or his blood. 

I have sent a little money, which I hope reaches you. It is not much, but it is what I could obtain quietly. Make what use of it you think will best serve the health and betterment of the people of Highmoor.

I am loathe to close, but you must have much to do and I do not wish to keep you at your desk too long. Good luck, and ( _again words have been scratched out - 'Maker bless,' perhaps_ ) may your words reach ears better placed than mine. 

( _There are a few drops of ink here, as if a final word was considered and then rejected._ )

By my own hand,  
Alexandra ( _and here the signature stops abruptly, as if snatched back, but the first name has not been struck out._ )

 

( _Two small postscripts have been added, the second scribbled somewhat hastily and not at all in the neat calligraphy of the rest of the letter._ )

I have little sympathy for your attacks on the Chantry, but that is a matter between you and the Maker and not one to which I will waste ink. It does not make you less right.

I will write to Teiron and tell him what I think of how you are treated. He is a stubborn, proud and debauched bastard, but perhaps he will listen.


	2. 13 Harvestmere 9:14 Dragon

_A letter delivered on the 13th day of Harvestmere 9:14 Dragon by the elven household staff at Castle Cousland to Alexandra Cousland, daughter of Bryce Cousland—Teyrn of Highever. The letter is written on good paper in a confident, angular hand, and is sealed in wax bearing the image of a wolf._

Alexandra,

Forgive me for how long it has taken me to write to you. I did not want to send reply through the same channels through which you contacted me—for fear of endangering their lives, and yours. I can only hope that this letter reaches you in confidence, but I must assume that it will not. 

There is word from Arl Estraven's household that you have made good on your word to contact him. I am greatly indebted to you for the support that you have shown to the Ascellan people, but I would urge you to consider the matter carefully before you choose to write to him again. Estraven is not a man who takes mildly to adversity, and I fear for your safety. A young woman in a position such as yours could suffer greatly from her involvement with someone like myself.

From your letter, and from the kindness that you displayed in giving alms to the people of Highmoor, I am certain of your earnest desire to help right the wrongs which continue to be done to my people, and I am not writing to dissuade you from such a course of action. However, I would suggest that discussing these matters with your father may be more effective than addressing Estraven directly. There are protections and safeguards afforded to a man of his standing that are not available to the likes of you and I, and he may more safely offer criticism and mediation where we, ourselves, may not. 

You will have to grant me a further forgiveness if I appear more cautious than you think is necessary. As you said in your letter, I have been in enough prison cells to learn that the matters of which you speak are not to be taken lightly. 

Let me speak to some of the matters contained in your letter.

I cannot believe that it is 'right and dutiful' of a man to serve his lord. The banns and arls of Ferelden serve at the disposal of the people, or at least, that is how I believe that it should be. As such, they should give their allegiance to whomever would rule over them for only for so long as that person represents the interests of their people, serves to more greatly enrich their lives, and mediate in their disputes. When their arl no longer fulfils in these basic services to them, then all people should have the right to withdraw the power on which the arl relies to rule them. 

This should not simply be limited to those who own the land, or oversee the workshops. It is a basic right that should be extended to all men and women—from the people who set the wheels on Ferelden carriages (as I still do myself), to the elves that struggle and starve in our cities' alienages. 

At the moment, the freemen and landowners alone may choose whom they wish to rule them, and even then they are limited to those banns who are close enough to offer the support of swords and soldiers to protect them from the many dangers of the world. While that is the case, it is those with the largest armies, the sharpest swords, and the most ruthless temperaments that will continue to rule the people—whether we wish them to, or not. 

To my mind, such a system of governance is not only unjust: It is wrong. 

It is my earnest hope that one day, we shall both live to see a world in which our country's strongholds are ruled over by men, women and elves who have been _elected_ to hold that office by a majority of their people. Further to this, the city guardsmen must then become a resource that is placed at the disposal of these elected governors, and not soldiers in the personal armies of men who have been placed above the rest of us by blood, or by the sword. 

I cannot prevent you from choosing to write to me again, but I would urge you to consider the matter carefully before you attempt to do so. There are too few people in Thedas with an intelligence and humanity as yours, and I should be greatly saddened to hear that such capacity for sympathy had led you into harm.

Yours in friendship, 

Will


	3. 30 Harvestmere 9:14 Dragon

_On the last day of Harvestmere 9:14 Dragon, a book - "The Philosophies of Thedas" - is delivered by the elves of Hinter to Gwillym Malik by the route prearranged. Included just inside the front cover is a single strip of parchment, inscribed in a hand freshly known to him._

I understand. Keep this for your edification. It will reward study.

_The book appears unimportant and not terribly interesting, though it is exactingly catalogued by the author - every page and line bear a number. A curious volume._

* * *

 _Seven days later, a letter arrives by sealed envelope and by a different route - on inspection, it appears to be nothing but a lengthy list of goods and arithmetic accompanied by a handful of gold crowns. Only the initials on the back of the envelope are unexpected: A.C._

_At the bottom is a single word, underlined three times: Study._

_The code is not complicated - a simple cross reference of numbers to page, line and word, with a single line under a number indicating that it stands for a letter and a lack of one indicating the use of the whole word. Once the thought of using the book as the cipher occurs, the letter is easily made sense of._

Will,

Now you know a family secret. It is an old one, not used much now, but please keep it close. If you write me in this same way, only I will know what we say between us. I hope it is not too much labor - I enjoy the puzzle of it, but my brothers find it tedious.

I give you my word as a Cousland that no one will know what we write of. I would not wish you or yours to come to harm because of me, or you to think me a foolish girl who cannot keep her tongue. I know many things, and speak few of them. My father says that is how one becomes wise.

I will write Teiron again. I have told my father of what goes on in your lands, and he shakes his head and says it is not possible for him to speak against the King's favorites when our own place is uncertain. I am ashamed to say that we argued. He rebuked me, but later he came to my room and said that it was right that I should say what I thought was right and that I must have his eyes. He would not say what he meant, but he smiled strangely when he said it so I think he is not unhappy with me. If Teiron is annoyed by my letters, so much the better - he deserves it. I am a Cousland, and if he thinks to touch me then he will think again - I have two strong brothers and my father is no man to be crossed.

You must not worry about me.  Save that for those who have need of it.

There is much sense in what you say - I do not see why it should be that elves or those who work with their hands should be set below those whose land is worked in the right to choose their allegiance - all who have honor should be free to give it to those worthy of it, and coin or land should not make so much difference. 

But is it not the place of the arls and banns and teyrns to rule? A warhound is not a hunting hound, and a hunting hound is not a rat-catcher, and a rat-catcher is not a sheep-dog - each is born and bred to a purpose. How can a man or a woman who is not bred to protect and rule over the people, who has not been taught from their cradle the wisdom and law and justice needed to rule properly - how can such a person be a good ruler? 

How can people who know nothing of books or wisdom or the matters of state or war choose who will best serve and rule over them? It does not seem to me that they would choose wisely, but rather that the fairest or the most clever-tongued would be chosen to rule.  Or perhaps the one with the fattest purse to buy drinks and lamb for all. 

You speak of placing armies beneath those chosen by the people, but how can a man serve a master who may be changed at the whim of the people? How can a warrior be expected to pledge his sword and his loyalty to an abstraction and not to a man - not to blood and sinew and a name which can lead him, but to someone who like as not has never held a sword in his hand? How can honor and duty live in such a temporary, ever-changing set of bonds?

Perhaps I ask too many questions - sometimes my tutors say so, but my mother says questions are the seeds of truth and we do better to say them. A world where all agree, where all choose the best to rule and where those who rule must rule justly - that sounds like a fine place, but I do not yet see how it could be defended or upheld - from inside or out. 

I hope this letter finds you and yours well, and that my pittance of alms can be of help. I will write and send more when I can. 

Yours in friendship,  
Alexandra


	4. 13 Wintermarch 9:15 Dragon

_By the thirteenth day of Wintermarch 9:15 Dragon, the frost has been as far north as Castle Cousland for many weeks, and there is talk of heavy snow, blocked roads and famine across the southern parts of Ferelden. The letter that reaches Alexandra through her household staff is torn and tattered. The wax seal is cracked through with cold and thaw, and the ink here and there has bled out into the snowmelt—making parts fragments of the numbers and the lines of code indecipherable._

_The hand it is written in is sharper, less confident and more precise than it was before. At it takes several hours of careful study by candlelight to decrypt most of what is written within._

Alexandra,

I don't know when this letter will reach you, or even if it shall reach you at all. 

Winter has ( _she can only guess that the word here should be 'come'_ ) in her full harshness to the Hinterlands. Crops have failed as far north as Lothering. The roads are closed. Many of our people are starving. No amount of coin may buy us food. I have not eaten in a week. Strikes have become more frequent, and the protests turn often to rioting. 

My association with the Hood of the Moors is now well-known, and Estraven has redoubled his efforts to seek us out. When the spring comes, we must leave ( _and here a few words are indecipherable_ ) since I was a child, and seek to disappear into the cities. I do not dare to tell you where, for fear it will get us both killed. You may continue to use our usual channels to contact me. They shall know where I am. 

I cannot agree that the only men who may rule are those who are bred for it. I am a cartwright. The son of an armourer, and do not feel myself any less fit to offer my services to my people than if I had been born in a castle, and sheltered from the daily hardships of their lives. 

Perhaps if all men were allowed to choose whomever they wanted to rule them, then they would choose poorly. But at least, then, their fates should be in their own hands, rather than grasped by the gauntlets ( _there words here may be 'of those' or 'of the people'_ ) who may best afford armour and swords. 

We can do nothing to ensure that they would choose the best among us. We can offer them education free from the lies and indoctrination of the Chantry, so that it may be so. We may try and build a world where all children are taught to read and write. But we may not guarantee the quality of their actions. This is not a problem with the system, it is simply a part of being human (or elves, or otherwise). And even the greatest men who are born and bred to rule may make terrible mistakes. May see their people starve—as the Ascellan, now, are starving. 

I may only tell you that when we are enfranchised, all sentient beings begin to find a reason to care. That the response of the majority to responsibility is to act, in turn, responsibly. And that blood and breeding and wealth makes little difference to those who do not. 

People do not simply serve well ( _the word here may be 'when'_ ) they are serving other people. In fact, they may serve an idea far better. That is the ideal which gave the myth of the Maker such strength—long before that idea was bent and broken to cater to the wills of men. It is the idea that we may serve something greater than ourselves. 

You may call that something by the name of the Maker, and my people may call it by the names of our old gods. I have little faith in either, and so I must choose other words for it myself—words like justice and equality which fill the space which other men may nourish with their gods. 

You do not ask too many questions. I only hope that I may help you in your quest for seeking answers. Never cease in that quest, Alexandra. It is the way in which we may best seek these things which are greater than we are.

( _Here, an entire line is lost where the ink has bled illegibly into the water_ )

I wish I could write more, but I do not much have a mind for cyphers and numbers, and we have precious little candlelight to spare. 

Yours in friendship,

Will.


	5. 20 Drakonis 9:15 Dragon

_The letter comes late this time - almost the twentieth day of Drakonis, 9:15 Dragon - though the aging of the paper within the carefully sealed leather courier pouch suggests it must have been written at least a month before. There are a dozen coins bound with the letter, but also a small packet of spices and herbs. They give the paper a strange, sweet and spicy smell._

Will,

I do not wish to tax your eyes, your candles or your ciphering skills. I will be brief.

I do not have words for how it grieves me to think that there is violence against the people in Hinter, that you and yours are driven from your homes into the moors. If by word or deed I can help you, you must tell me how, but let me beg you to reconsider if you have thrown in your lot with the Hood of the Moors. Their thoughts may well be noble, but their means are those of bandits and I do not see how they can invite anything but greater slaughter. You may be wiser than I, but I know the value of a sharp sword and how little it sometimes matters to have one at hand.

I do not know how to answer the idea that a poor choice made freely is better than a good choice made under a guiding hand. It speaks to me in my heart, and yet my mind doubts. I will think on it, I promise.

I must say one thing more - I doubt the merit of service to an idea. Ideas are whimsical, wanton things - an idea will spread her legs for anyone with a fair face and a clever tongue, and put herself to their service for a pittance. I have seen men in my father's court and in the King's who can turn an idea about its head until it will say anything they wish it to say, and I do not doubt you have men of that sort in Hinter. I can trust a man who I can look in the eyes, whose father and whose father's father I know the actions of, but an idea who could give her affections elsewhere in a moment? Men may fight well for such an idea, but will that lead to good? I doubt it greatly, Will.

I continue to think on what you have said, as always. I have sent you dried spices from my mother's garden - if I cannot ward you and yours from hunger, perhaps I can at least sweeten what little you do have.

Yours in friendship,  
Alexandra


	6. 10 Cloudreach 9:15 Dragon

_By the time reply reaches Castle Cousland, the spring is already in full flower. It is the tenth day of Cloudreach, the snows to the south have melted, and the magnitude of the death that winter and famine has brought to southern Ferelden is just beginning to be reported in Denerim. And so it happens that Alexandra's heart surges with the smallest breath of joy when one of her father's elven servants comes to her room and places a letter into her hand that is sealed in red with the familiar profile of a wolf._

_She carefully unrolls the paper, and reads it in the bright spring sunlight of her bedroom window overlooking the gardens—the precise, uncomfortable lines of the cipher written in Will's hand beside her, and her copy of 'The Philosophies of Thedas' in her hands._

_Within the leather pouch which she finds returned to her, there is also a pressed sprig of some strange plant with viscous, dark green thorns and strangely delicate yellow flowers. They fill the curls of the paper with the most delicious smell—sweet and rich and creamy all at once, and almost exactly like the coconuts that her father once bought from a ship that had come south from Tevinter._

 

Alexandra,

My actions are slowly becoming more widely known. You shall know the truth eventually, and I would rather that it come from me than hear that you have found out from your father. 

I have not thrown my lot in with the Hood because of the famine. 

I am, and have always been, their founder.

I do not wish to tell you that violence is sometimes necessary. Instead, I shall say only that there are times when you can, in conscience, do nothing else. The world in which I live is greatly different from yours. It is a cruel, harsh place, and death comes for us frequently. 

We have grown used to it.

Men, women and even children die here very often. Once you have seen enough of it, its presence matters only a very little. And, once that happens, you begin to occupy your thoughts with how you may keep it from the ones you love, no matter who you must turn its hand upon instead.

You must realise that I do not say this lightly. Before I am all of what I am, I am a healer. It is my calling to preserve life for as long as I am able, and as long as life itself may endure. But I have seen much of death and her pale cousin, sickness. They are both inevitable in life. In all our lives. 

I do not concern myself with battling her. It would be as foolish as attempting to cut the wind. Instead, I must consider when she is necessary, and when she is not.

The choice is not always as simple as people would have you believe, or as honourable as they may tell it in the stories.

There have been many difficult choices this last winter, but I have been fortunate enough to survive it, and to preserve the lives of many of those close to me. Of children very much like yourself.

Now, at last, the spring has begun to ease over the mountains and the wilds, and the whinflower is in bloom again upon the moors. It is a bountiful blessing in a landscape as barren ours, and quite unlike anything you may find elsewhere in Ferelden.

Since time immemorial my people have used it to flavour our drinks, feed our horses and dye our clothes, and it is of particular grief to every Ascellan that Estraven has long since begun attempts to ban the wearing of the yellow.

I have included a sprig of this year's first bloom with my letter, and hope that the scent of it lasts long enough to reach you in the far northern lands of Highmoor. I am certain you will not have smelt the like of it before.

This morning (as in every morning for the last week) the breeze that caresses the moor where we are camped is heavy with it's sweetness—and I should like to share the smallest part of it with you.

Writing may be hard while we are in our self-imposed exile out here, and you must not grieve yourself too greatly if it takes a little time before I am able to write to you again. Until such a time presents itself, you shall be in my thoughts each time I sit down beside the fire in the purple twilight, and eat my meals flavoured with your Highmoor herbs.

Yours in friendship,  
Will.


	7. 16 Solace 9:15 Dragon

_By the time the next delivery is made, it is well into Solace and summer has begun its long slide into fall. There are two letters, both in the same fine leather casings Will has come to expect, though one has clearly been moldering for most of a season._

_The older letter contains fewer gold coins than usual, though there is another packet of spices, and the hand is sharper and steadier than it normally is - as if the writer were exercised, or wished each word to be utterly clear._

Will,

For your honesty, I thank you. I will not say I am not shocked - I am. But you are a good man, and if you have been driven to banditry to protect your people then I must believe it is a sickness of the land and not of your own heart.

You have no need to speak to me of the necessity of action, the commonplace of death or the complicated rightness of bloodshed. My father was a warrior in his youth and my grandfather a general - in my time, I will like as not be both. For the defense of my people, for the defense of my King, it will be both right and necessary for me to bear arms and armor and to make war where it is just and needed. It is the question of banditry - of theft and ambush - where I have qualms, and yet... how could you hope for a victory in the field? Have you any other choice?

If you do, I cannot see it. Forgive my blindness. 

I still fear it will cause more harm than help. Surely you cannot hope to prevail if the Arl's forces are well-armed and well-trained, and they seek your destruction? To see your work end in fire and slaughter...

It is too much to think of. I cannot bear to write more. 

Yours,  
Alexandra

_The letter ends in a sharp, jagged scrawl of her encoded name, and the ink has been blurred in places from dampness that seems not to have come from outside the envelope._

* * *

 _The hand of the second letter is less steady, as if perhaps it was written not at a writing desk but somewhere less conducive to the work. A small bit of candle wax clings to one corner of the page. There is a small paper-wrapped packet enclosed, along with a more generous purse of gold._

Will,

I wait daily for news of you - of the Hood of the Moor. I have been on my knees to the Maker twice a day these last months, praying for the safety of you and yours, and I can only beg his mercy that this will find you safe and well. 

I do not think Hinter can bear to do without you, Will. You must take care with yourself. 

( _Here the text stops, a few drops of ink suggesting something considered but unsaid._ )

The scent of your flower comforts me still. I have had it set in a pendant I can wear next to my heart, so the people of Highmoor will never be far from my thoughts. I have sent you a token to match it, if you will have it, though it is not so fine. I do not think you are a man who will begrudge me that.

I am trying to be brave, Gwillym, but it comes hard. My own life, I do not fear to risk, but you and yours should not face such hard chances so far from those who would aid you.

I am loathe to close, but I know that every word I write is one more for you to cipher and I do not wish to burden you in a time when surely you have much to do. I will only say again that you must take care of yourself. Please.

Yours,  
Alexandra

_Inside the packet is a substantial lock of deep brown hair which has been carefully braided so as to keep it as pristine as possible, then clasped at both ends with simple bone._


	8. 7 Kingsway 9:15 Dragon

_Solace and August have come and gone, and it is the early days of Kingsway before Alexandra receives the reply that she has been waiting for—coarse paper rolled into a scroll, and sealed with the profile of a wolf._

_She is so familiar with the sharp, considered lines of his cipher now that the sloping, confident hand of his earliest letters seems almost strange now, when she cannot sleep and takes to reading them back to herself._

Alexandra,

Lives such as mine are not often lived well, and they do not often end well. You must not grieve yourself with this. It is the fate that I have made for myself, and it does not frighten me. The only thing that we may do is act as we believe we must. To live our lives as best we are able, and die as good a death as we can. 

It is not a great tragedy, it is simply being alive. 

I continue to do what I must. 

The line between a soldier and a bandit is not so clear as it might seem when you are the daughter of a warrior, and the granddaughter of a general. I am old enough to remember the Ferelden Rebellion very well, as well as the deeds that were committed by soldiers and mercenaries on both sides. I have delivered many of the children in the Crossing (now as old as you are, if not a little older) who were borne by unmarried Ascellan women in the year after our lands were retaken by Ferelden. I have seen the shame and despair on the faces of these young mothers. I have bathed the bodies of four of them who decided that they could bear it all no more. And I have known that there is nothing that I can do to ease the sickness that has been brought into their souls by war. 

And so I do not consider the men and women of the Hood to be without honour—to be mere bandits. We have trained them to obey our orders, and to do only what they must. As far as I am aware of it, there are no Ferelden women in Highmoor who have fought with that shame and despair because of our men. There are no poor families who have starved because we have taken their food. There are no women and children tortured in our camps, or mouldering in our dungeons. They are allowed quick deaths where we must, and when there is a choice, we allow them to live so they might tell stories of us and spread fear into the hearts of those that oppress us. 

The summer has been blissfully kind to us—all endless blue and rolling green and the sweet yellow of the whinflower. The last few years in the Crossing have been hard on us, and out here we finally taste the cool, bright, fast-running water of freedom again. 

I am among those that I love. When the evening comes out of the east to meet the setting sun—purple and blue and filled with the songs of the moorland birds—we sit down around the fire to warm our hands and eat and laugh together. We sleep beneath the stars as our ancestors once did, and in the morning the sunlight wakes us to the last few embers of wood smoke, and we begin our day again. 

It will not be long before the winter begins to creep northwards out of the Korcari Wilds. Already the heather has begun to turn from purple to brown, and the hawthorn and juniper trees that arch their backs against the wind have begun to drop their leaves. 

Soon, we shall have little choice but to find shelter in town or city, rubbing our hands together and stamping our feet against the brutal southern cold until the spring bursts forth again. When that happens, I shall have more time for my letters. The cipher gets a little easier with use, and now that I readily know where I may find most of the words I wish to be encoded, I hope to write to you at some more length again. 

In the meantime, I should like to thank you for the gift that you have sent me. I imagine that must have been growing your hair for many years, and that it is quite long now. It is of a colour that we don't see much of this far south—most of our people are dark of hair like myself, and you should not be able to tell one lock of it from another across most of the southern Hinterlands. 

I shall wear it about my wrist, and try my best to keep it as carefully as I can, but we live amongst enough mud and water and horse blood out here that everything becomes filthy and frayed sooner or later. Still, I should rather wear it and ruin it than keep it in a box and never see it. These things are made to be worn and used, and I have never seen much sense in doing anything else. 

I hope that you are well up there in Highever, but do not pray to the Maker for me. I do not place my faith in him, and if he does exist then it would be best not to draw his attention upon me—I cannot imagine that he is best pleased with the words that I have spoken, and the things that I have done. If you must think of me at all (and I should remind you that it would be for the best if you did not), then speak this old Ascellan blessing for me where you should like to pray:

( _Here is written a long series of words, laboriously spelled out letter-by-letter in the cipher. It must have taken some time to write, and takes Alexandra almost an hour to decrypt. It is not made easier by the fact that the words, once they are decrypted, appear to be in an language utterly unfamiliar to her._

 _However, underneath, there is a translation into the common Ferelden trade tongue._ )

_Mauw shu riauk rosu aulwauws si muus wie.  
Mauw shu wonk aulwauws lu aus wier laucr.   
Mauw shu sen shonu fell ephin wier faucu.  
Thu rauons faull sifs ephin shu miirs,  
Ank mauw wu muus aujauon   
Whun shu whonfliwur lliims in shu holls._

May the road rise always to meet you.  
May the wind always be at your back.  
May the sun shine full upon your face.  
The rains fall soft upon the moors,  
And may we meet again   
When the whinflower blooms on the hills.

One day, I should very much like to teach you how to speak it in the Ascellan tongue, and not just because if you may learn it, then perhaps I can be done with this blasted cipher! I hope, at least, that I have not made too many mistakes, and that you may understand my writing well enough. You have a far sharper mind than mine, and we may both be grateful for that. 

Yours in friendship, 

Will.


	9. 28 Harvestmere 9:15 Dragon

_The reply comes in time for Satinalia, wrapped in the same well-tooled letter and with the usual purse. Alexandra's hand is smooth and clean, though there are moments in the first few paragraphs where the ink is marred as if her hand might have trembled and there is a soft impression of crushed parchment and dried dampness at the bottom of the page which Will does not recognize but any man of the world would know as the press of lips._

Will,

Your rebuke shames me, and gives me a great deal of wisdom. The misdeeds of common soldiers are ever something that any warleader struggles to contain, because men cut loose of their homes and among those who they see as their enemies will do things they would never dream of at home. If you have taught and trained your men to do and be better, then you are a warband in truth and no mere cluster of bandits. ( _Here the words "Maker bless your arms" have been encoded and scratched out._ ) May you be strong as Mabari and clever as wolves, and may you gain victory. 

The summer of Highever has been warm and bright, the land fertile and the people alive with pleasure, and I have watched them with more care than I did in the previous year. They work hard - some harder than they ought - but there is satisfaction in their faces and pride in their backs. To be lord of such a people, even in so small a part as I am, is a joy that fills my chest to bursting. Someday I must take you among our fields, to see our grain and the great herds of our cattle, and I will teach you all the small ways in which a man of Highever is known to his own land - even the ones I am not supposed to know. 

The cold wind is coming, and harvest has already begun. It will be bountiful this year, and perhaps you will taste some of it in Highmoor when the merchants have done. I will speak to my father about that. 

If and when my hair becomes spoiled, you must tell me so that I can send you a fresh lock. I would have you keep it always, so I will always be in your thoughts as you are in mine. 

I do not think the Maker would scorn you, for you are a righteous man, but I will do as you say. It is a beautiful blessing, and often will it pass my lips. 

May the road rise always to meet you.  
May the wind always be at your back.  
May the sun shine full upon your face.  
The rains fall soft upon the moors,  
And may we meet again  
When the whinflower blooms on the hills.

There are so many things I would have you teach me, Will, and your tongue is now one of the first and foremost. If there is a volume on it to be had, I will have it.

Yours in friendship,  
Alexandra


End file.
